


fancy trainers

by missmuffin221



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John is also really sad, M/M, Or he just tries in this chapter and deep inside doesn't really want to, Running, That’s why he starts running, Yeah basically just running at this point, prosth, someone with a transtibial prosthesis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6755344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmuffin221/pseuds/missmuffin221
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John came back from war with a limp, a cane and nightmares and the lost of purpose in his life. And now he should start running?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. to hit that point even harder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Attydiva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attydiva/gifts), [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts), [Galadhia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadhia/gifts).



> I told AtlinMerrick about a fic idea, my headcanon at the moment and asked her to write it, bc I can't do it. She liked the idea and told me to write it and I told her that it would suck, very much, if I would try it. She gave me a speech about try it and get better and make the story real and that nobody starts perfect. So this story now is my training. And since she used the marathon metapher....well that was that.
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you will like it or at least don't hate it.
> 
> My endless love goes to Attydiva, who beta-ed the shitty german stick-up-the-ass-ness out of my story and made it a beautyful as possible. She made like everything sounds so much better. And now we are a team! <3
> 
>  
> 
> And it's a gift to my honeypie. Because of...everything is so much better with you.

“You want me to do what?” John asked, with utter disbelief in his voice. 

Ella, sitting beside him in her soothing office, with a pencil in one hand and chart in the other, cocked her head and looked at him. 

“I said you should find a sport that challenges you both, physically and mentally. And since many studies have shown, and I can add my personal experience here, that running is an excellent way to achieve both, you should try running, John." 

To date, John hadn’t particularly liked Ella’s ideas for regaining a life without nightmares and trust issues.  
The blog remained an empty page, with a blinking cursor, that only made him more depressed, as it reminded him that nothing ever happened to him that he could share with the world. 

But this suggestion was a new low. He looked at Ella, down at his bad leg, and then at Ella again.  
He lowered his eyes, once more to hit that point even harder, to look at his cane, which leant close to that leg on the comfortable leather chair, and then, pointedly, back at her. 

“Running? With a limp and a cane?” Surely, that must sound wrong even to your ears? John stated sounding a bit upset. Sure, the limp was psychosomatic, but knowing this and making his body accept this fact and prevail over the real pain of his damn leg were two very different things. 

***

John listened to Ella tell him to try it. To set a goal, like joining one of the regular running tours in Battersea or Victoria Park for starters, or, even better, a marathon as a long run goal. (No pun intended, she said.) He finished the session with a lukewarm promise to think about it, which meant he still found the whole idea ridiculous, but hadn’t wanted to argue about it any more. 

When Harry called the following day for their weekly chat, John told her about Ella’s suggestion. He did so, mostly, because neither one of them seemed to have anything to say and it provided a topic for discussion. He was laughing when he told her but quickly became defensive when she asked if it wouldn’t, in fact, be worth trying. He had hoped she would simply agree that it was a preposterous idea and move on. Instead, her response reminded him why he only agreed to speak with her once a week. 

They didn’t really connect anymore. Harry had disapproved when he joined the army and of his subsequent decision to deploy abroad, which resulted in the gunshot that had, essentially, destroyed his will to live. She was angry that he refused to live with her and annoyed by his constant entreaties to get sober and reconcile with Clara. 

John thought bitterly to himself of his training as a military officer that had left him in the best shape of his life, able to exercise(for hours), perform grueling surgery on his feet ( for hours), and to run and fight with the willpower to accomplish anything he set his mind to and he wanted that man back. He did want to be able to accept Ella’s challenge and vanquish his god damn limp, his trust issues (her words) and his nightmares, although not necessarily in that order. 

So, John told her he would, in fact, maybe, try running next month, when his pension came and he could afford to buy shoes and stuff. Thankfully, she didn’t remind him again that if flat shared with her, he would have more money for things, although he could hear it in tone when she said her goodbye’s. 

***

Harry Watson loved her baby brother. True, she hadn’t been the best role model for him as a child (too wild, too defiant, essentially opposite in personality from him) nor in adolescence, when her coming out to her parents wasn’t what one could call “successful” and her drinking out of control, two events that went hand in hand, really. She had moved out, then, leaving John, who was barely a teenager, himself, to handle, on one hand, their raging parents and, on the other, a sister struggling to find her place in the world. During that time, they rarely found themselves on the same page. 

Nonetheless she loved her baby brother. Even though he had decided to join the army, got deployed to Afghanistan and shot and now lived in a depressing shoebox of a flat instead of living with her. You just love your sibling, she thought, you love them, even when they do stupid things, and hurt themselves or you, while they’re at it. You still do everything in your power to help them live a good life and find happiness or at least, to live a life that’s a little less shitty. In a more sublime part of London, another older sibling, would outright sign this statement. 

So Harry Watson went online and navigated her way to the website of the big sporting goods retailer, whose ads for running gear had, over the last week, tunneled their way into her brain through repeated exposure on her social networks. 

There, she placed an order for the high end (and, in her price range) running shoes, apparel and electronic gadgets one needs to do running, according to consumer reviews, and shipped it to John. He was extremely brave, resourceful and practical. He also was willful and proud. With the gear in hand, she thought he would at least try, just to prove to her, Ella, the world and the whole bloody universe that he was right and they were wrong. Harry smiled to herself, thinking that even if she wasn’t the perfect big sister, she knew how to put her brother’s obstinacy to work for his own benefit.


	2. run away from numbing nothingness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wonderful beta attydiva somehow not only encouraging me to keep on writing, but also makes the story less geman-ish and more like proper english.
> 
> And my lovely sugar plum Novanara for liking me beside my typos :)

If bravery was by far the kindest word for stupidity, then endurance plus a healthy dose of stubbornness was his way of thinking. John Watson was a brave man. He was extremely brave, resourceful and practical. He was also stubborn. Very stubborn. One didn’t make it through basic training without some endurance, or stubbornness. John was proud, too. And, to add to his misery, John loved his sister, even if they didn’t get along. He realized this with a rush of affection, defiance and laughter, as he shook his his head in disbelief.

A package had arrived a few days after his call with Harry. It was a labeled box, which, to his surprise held dark blue running shorts, with a white lightening bolt logo, a white shirt, socks and a pair of trainers, which were both in dark blue and white, with hints of lighter blue. Also there where was a runner’s watch, a light blue bandana with a wild pattern and a belt for small drinking bottles, matching the colours of his outfit. It was…ridiculous. It continued to look ridiculous after John put everything on and looked at himself in the small mirror in his small wardrobe. 

Why couldn’t it be enough, he wondered, if he said, that of all the things, running wouldn’t be a good idea? Why was he the only person who see the facts and made come to this educated decision? 

***

This thought, and his decision followed him around for another day of mind numbing nothingness. He decided to wait until the evening just to be sure - it was a sunday, and in his area there weren’t many people who did anything sporty other than watching a match on the telly. Hiding his sports gear under his jacket John walked a few hundred meters down the road from his apartment and went to a path by the river. There he set his cane and the jacket on a bench in the shade of a tree of the already fading light. It was a little cold, but that’s how April worked, wasn’t it? The fading daylight on the path was illuminated by streetlights, and although the one closest to him didn’t work, John knew the area and wasn't the kind of a person, who was afraid of a little darkness. In fact, he preferred it this way for his stupid little experiment. He would try it, fail and could return to his sad hovel. 

John’s military training had included a lot of running, sprinting and even running with a backpack filled with odds and ends and heavy bricks. He stretched, ogled his cane and limped away from the bench. 

He tried his first steps warily, still half-hidden in the shadows of the trees and the darkness of the out-of-order streetlight, as another runner passed him, very close, struggling a bit and sprinted away. John had barely begun when he cursed as something hit him in the back – nice placed on the precise spot of his not-psychosomatic but actually shot through shoulder , thank you very much, knocked him down and rolled on top of him. A deep voice swears:

‘For god sake. What on earth are you doing in the middle of this path?’ 

The man, fleet-footed for somebody who just struck the ground, pulled himself up and looked into the direction of the first runner. The whole process of shoving, falling, rolling and pitifully laying on the ground hadn’t took much time, but the first man was gone, having disappeared into the shadows between the light posts and the trees. 

Brushing the dirt from his clothing, the dark-haired man looked down at John, who was still on the ground, having only moved from lying to a sitting position and was holding his damn bad leg. As he looked up at the dark figure, whose height was highlighted by the angle, John frowned and gave the man an expectant look. But the mysterious “I-knock--people-over-man” was busy on his phone, which he had removed from one of the pockets of his impressive coat. John cleared his throat and the man turned his head looked at John, and scanned him from head to his runners-covered toes. And looked…surprised? Bewildered? Angry? 

‘Nobody runs the marathon after putting on their first pair of fancy trainers! But you, with your psychosomatic limp …it’s utterly ludicrous . I would expect more cautiousness from a former army…’ he glanced at John, again, looking all the way up to his now frowning eyes, ‘Doctor, but maybe I’ll better tell this my fleeing suspect!’ 

Despite this, the tall man didn’t seem to go after the ‘suspect immediately. 

John stumbled as he got to his feet, the height difference even more apparent now, and glared at the taller man. 

‘You utter prick!’

A rustling in the trees nearby stopped John from delivering his full rant and the other man from staring at him, eyes full of pity and curiosity. A shoddy man, probably homeless, John guessed, peaked through the branches of a nearby tree, contemplated the scene and muttered to the tall man in the coat: 

‘Saw him, Mr. ‘olmes, near the station. ‘e ‘ides there. Mel watches ‘im. Come along.’ 

He pointed over his shoulder to the northwest area of the park-ish area close to the river and disappeared into the shadows of the tree.

Mr. Holmes, John concluded from the strange mutterings of the departed fellow, turn round on his heels and sprinted towards the direction the homeless man had indicated, leaving an utterly dumbstruck John Watson standing on the pavement. He shifted his weight to his left leg so as not to further strain his bad leg and rubbed his bruised shoulder.

Well, so much for running, he thought. 


	3. old friends

He sat on his bed in his sad little flat and glared at the pile of sportswear, which laid down on the shabby carpet. An island of bright new colours in a horrible beige sea. He’d loved to just toss it into the closet, into the rear corner, never to be seen again. Or send it back to the sportswear supplier, who send it in the first place. 

It had ended before it even began. He had ended it before he had even begun and he was very upset about what happened, why it had happened in the first place, about this Mr. Holmes (he sniffed), Harry, Ella, himself, and the decisions he made that lead up to him sitting here and furious at a pair of fancy trainers.

Harry. Next thing on the list of things he didn’t want to think about. He would have to communicate with her at some point. She had ordered the stuff. As a gift. For him. And even if he didn’t have asked for it or needed to stuff to follow Ella’s advice, which he wasn't interested in, after all, he knew that it was her demonstrating her love and affection for him. 

So he had to thank her. That’s what one does. Even if you didn’t ask for the present. It’s just the right thing to do. But he couldn’t. She would ask if he had tried running and if not why not and he couldn’t just say that he aborted the whole idea after been pushed and knocked to the ground. He certainly wasn't going to tell her that the guy had been somehow memorable and rude and had left him standing there and that he had, therefore, quit before he even took the first wary steps. 

John always stood up for the weak, for the ones that were bullied or being pushed around without reason. He had always run to help his fellow soldiers even if it meant putting himself in the line of fire. And well, he had, in fact, gotten himself shot while aiding another soldier, thank you very much. He had defended friends and uni mates, who were harassed for being not that fast or smart. Backed up comrades in the army, when things had gotten out of hand in an argument because people couldn't just mind their own business. He even fought with his dad when he got into a rant about his queer sister. Long story short: he wasn’t a coward when it came to defending other people. But for himself, it wasn’t that easy and clear.

While imagining the conversation in his mind, John counted the days till the inevitable call from his sister. Maybe something would come up to distract her. Maybe something interesting would happen to him so that he could use that story to bypass the whole running subject. This stupid, senseless running thing he didn’t wanted to doing the first place.  
But first things first. First, he had his weekly appointment at the rehab centre (one of his choice, one of the few benefits the army provided for veterans), where he went g every Wednesday at 2 pm and after that, his appointment with Ella at 4 pm. Two whole days until then. Maybe he could just…well what? Find a job and a new, less depressing flat and purpose for his life in two days? He wasn’t sure if therapy was supposed to work this way, but whatever worked was fine for him.

Oh John Watson, he thought, avoidance strategy pars excellence. 

***

On Wednesday took the tube and walked through Russell Square, after he stopped by the Veteran's Office to get some paperwork done and before his appointment at the rehab centre. It was a short walk to the conveniently named “Back to Work” physiotherapy clinic. The irony stung a little bit sometimes. He fetched himself a cuppa to go and went stiffly with his cane and the paper cup on the sandy path when a long forgotten but still familiar voice called after him.

‘John! John Watson?!’

Mike Stamford had attended medical school with John at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and the last thing he had heard about Mike was that he went on to teach there.

Mike, who was carrying a little gym bag, lead John to a nearby bench for a chat. Because Mike was impossible not to like, with his chubby friendly face, John felt he couldn’t just give him the cold shoulder. So they exchanged pleasantries. Well pleasantries isn’t the right word, when it is about war, is it? 

‘I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened? ‘Asked Mike, flashing big open smile.

‘I got shot.” Answered John ruefully. 

They both looked embarrassed. Mike looked at John and then at his cane worriedly. Oblivious, John took a sip from his tea then looked across to his old friend. 

‘Are you still at Bart’s, then?’ he asked trying to change the topic away from war and getting shot and having a limp.

‘Teaching now. Bright young things, like we used to be. God, I hate them!’, Mike said and they both laughed.

‘What about you? Just staying in town ’til you get yourself sorted?’ 

Mike added and god, how could anybody hide from this open face. Mike was one of the mates he had really liked a lot during his residency. He had always been helpful and was a great listener. He was the one you went to for advice and the one who always knew someone who could help. The students must love him, John thought.

So, John took another sip of teas and gave Mike the short version about Ella and his sister and his limp and running, or rather his failed attempt at running. At that, Mike smiled sheepishly and tipped the tip of his left foot to his gym bag.

‘About running’ he said ‘I know a guy!’ and John looked at the bag and then to Mike and something in his look must have given his thoughts away.

‘And don’t look at me like that. Yeah. I know I got fat. But I’m working on getting in shape. Come along!?’ Mike stated enthusiastically.

So with a short look at his watch, John calculated that there was still enough time to follow Mike before physio, since at least something was happening to him. Baby steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God bless Atty, who suffers her way patiently through all my conjugation mistakes. <3


	4. that's quite an understatement

‚I know a guy.‘ turned out to be the understatement of the year. Billy Murray, former roommate, fellow student and one hell of a good wingman (One doesn’t become Three-Continents-Watson without a little help from one’s friends after all). But it had been too easy to lose touch and too hard to reconnect, when you were no longer a the funny medical student, who could pull almost any girl (and maybe, just for the record, exchange flirty looks with a handful of young men during those years) and was, really, a lot of fun to be around. John had morphed from that guy to a slightly damaged John-Watson-shaped shell filled with sadness regret and loneliness. The man he had been, was no more, so it made no sense to call his old mates, since their mate was gone, right??

Despite this, Bill Murray was his old mate. He still had the infectious smile and it appeared a missing lower leg. John was sure, Murray had also deployed, but couldn’t remember when and where. He had trained as a nurse. He had studied at Barth’s with them, took some of the same classes and had even shared a shitty bedsit with John at one point during his residency. If asked why he didn’t work harder and become a doctor or why he wanted to be “just a nurse” he would always shrug and smile and say that really good doctors, those who would go to war would need brave and expertly trained nurses, to assist them. And that was that. Bill Murray never had any conflict about his decision to become a nurse and exuded confidence. 

And suddenly there he was. Still the same old smile. Lanky figure and commanding voice, reminiscent of motivational speakers who instilled confidence in those who needed a push to try something new. The same Bill, who had urged John and Mike on with a last minute “You can do it and won’t fail because you both already are very good doctors, which means you probably could break every bone in my body while naming them.”-speeche before their physical exam.

He hugged John tight, clapping him on his good shoulder, as if he could somehow sense that there was more to John’s injuries than the cane and his leg. John immediately felt guilty, somehow, for his leg, for an injury that only existed in his head. Here stood Bill, missing part of his leg, wearing a transtibial prosthesis, teaching a running class close to where he worked at the University College Hospital. It is said that the universe is rarely so lazy, but for one John Watson, it was, indeed, the biggest coincidence ever.

***

Just like old times, the two clicked. Talking about their deployment, checking out each other’s injuries, and laughing. John laughed again as he told Bill about his first disastrous attempt to run. Mike always arrived very early for this class leaving plenty of time to chat so while the other runners warmed up, Bill just invited John to the next class which met on Friday.   
‘Just bring some trainers and a comfy sweatpants and you’ll be good!’ Bill said, clapping John again on the shoulder as he turned to organize the group for the beginning of class.   
As John left Regent's park for his appointment at the physio centre, another, tall, darkly dressed man passed him headed in the opposite direction. Just a moment too soon for them to recognize each other.

***

Physio was hellish, apparently his shoulder didn’t appreciate being hit from behind and knocked to the ground. John tolerated the treatment in stoic silence, all the while preparing himself mentally for Ella. Robert, his physiotherapist, advised him not to engage in any strenuous activity in order to give his still recovering shoulder a chance to heal. No shit! Thought John, but kept his mouth shut, because Robert was always friendly and had a looked out for veterans. 

***

‘How was your week, John?’ asked Ella, eyeing him from behind her clipboard while looking at his cane expectantly.   
‘I carry on.’ He answered with a shrug, which, in retrospect, wasn’t the brightest idea, bearing in mind the things Robert had just done to his already very unhappy shoulder.  
John was so lost in his thoughts, reflecting on the time he and Bill had spent together before Afghanistan, that Ella had to drag every single word out of him which left both of exhausted by the end of the session.   
As John prepared to go, Ella asked, in the leading, suggestive manner that she often adopted with him, whether he planned to attend the running class on Friday. Making it clear, that this was more of a command than a question.   
‘Actually, yes.’ He reluctantly replied. Stubborn John Watson. It was one thing agree to participate, but it was another to have to accept that he was following her advice. 

***

John 18:25  
Thanks for the sportswear, Harry, it wasn’t necessary. John 

[Sent] 18:27  
No thanks needed, just try it, maybe? X Harry

John 18:30  
Yes. John

Harry smiled, as she read John’s text. Stubborn John Watson. She knew she couldn't expect any more than the “yes” she had just received. Despite the impersonal nature of texting, as opposed to their weekly call, Harry could read the subtext present in those three letters from her brother and was enormously pleased to sense a willingness to try that was more than she expected.

**Author's Note:**

> editing on a kindle reader sucks. very much.


End file.
